To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

The other day I was invited to a "Mom's Night Out" where we moms got together sans kids and watched horror movies. Since this is a mom's group that focuses on nursing, homeschooling, attachment parenting and the like, the crowd was not large. However, it was enough to make it fun.

We started in the dining room of our friend's house with an appetizer of dark chocolate pudding. Apparently, she is on a raw food detox diet that requires her to eat nothing but raw foods. So, when she walked into the room with a bowl of what looked like poop that you might want to call your doctor about, I was not too enthused at the thought of eating said pudding. Some of the other girls got to theirs before I managed to get mine. They began to ask what was in it, and exclaim how good it was. When she replied that there were avocados, honey, dates and cocoa powder all mixed together, well, I knew everyone there was a liar! Still, trying to be the good guest, and wanting to test my poker face to see if I could believably hide my disgust, I got a scoop for myself. My tummy was apprehensive. I would have considered this a mousse before I would have called it a pudding. It was thick, and, again, looked like a diaper that even I wouldn't want to touch! So I made the leap, thinking, "Well, they eat bugs for treats in other countries...at least this stuff is all relatively normal foods," and took a bite...

It was DELICIOUS! It was thick, rich, and sooooo chocolatey! I literally began gobbling it up. I ate just a small amount, and was completely full because it was so rich (which sucked, b/c I had just picked up my dinner, chinese take-out, and had no room for it!). I was in love.

Today, I'm not so sure. I have been on the toilet (with a magazine, if you get my drift) at least three times a day since, and I have a feeling it has something to do with the magical pudding I ate! I'd do it again, though, b/c damnit, that was some good wacko pudding!

So after puddin' time, we went to the tv to watch a movie. We started with The Blair Witch Project. I discovered that that movie is not one single bit scary when you are in a room with a bunch of other women running your mouths about everything but the scary movie on tv! I also learned that some people think that Ewan McGregor is super-hot. I disagreed, adding that I once thought that Josh Hartnett was hot, but now has grown up and is, well, not so hot. I also found out that Helena Bonham Carter nursed her child till it was five years old. Ah, the education of time with others!

The crowd thinned after the first movie screening came to an end. So, it was time to pull out the liquor. I also learned that night that Capt. Morgan's and 7-Up taste JUST LIKE cream soda when mixed, and thus, will be purchasing my own bottle of the Captain very soon. We joked around and talked shit for a while, and it was nice to see the moms I'm so used to watching keep up their p's and q's around their kids come out of their shells. Why, I haven't used the word "fuck" in mixed company so much in a very, very long time! It was liberating! (Oh, wait, does it count if you're talking about your kids and how you've taught them to curse through your own bad behavior?) Later, we began to watch another movie, this time House of 1000 Corpses. I love that movie, and was thrilled to get the gorefest going. There is plenty of gross killing and mind-blowing ummm, creativity, in that movie, so you think I would have been equally as excited about the next conversation. One girl there, whom I've hung out with a few times and seems pretty cool, decided to tell a joke, much like the ones she used to share in college. It went like this: (Oh, excuse me, I have to run to the bathroom now...damn pudding!)

"What is the worst thing about fucking a dead baby?" Silence, mostly b/c we have no idea where this came from, and it's quite sickening. "Wiping the blood stains off your clown suit!" I see where she got this from, as there is a preponderance of clownage at the beginning of the 1000 Corpse movie. The girl throwing the shindig immediately mentioned John Wayne Gacy, who was pretty well known for dressing as a clown and raping and killing small boys. It was an attempt at changing the subject, somehow. However, before that could happen, another girl there got upset and decided to tell us about how she had been raped as a four year old by her stepdad or something. Talk about an uncomfortable and awkward moment! So, after a few minutes of the joke teller apologizing, and the rest of us staring at the ceiling trying to pretend we were somewhere else, we got back to watching the movie. Apparently, though, the girl was not really that sorry about her joke, b/c she later told us this doozy: "What's the difference b/t a truck full of dead babies and a truck full of bowling balls?" "You can get the dead babies out with a pitchfork." Yeah, still had a hard time laughing...Btw, you can look up "dead baby jokes" and find TONS of them online (thank you, Julia, for sending me in that direction...my life will never be the same again).

I managed to stay up that night talking and watching movies until I had to go to work at 2:30 am. I am proud to say that I managed to rock out my paper route pretty much completely asleep! I don't remember a thing from that day of work, especially the drive home. Well, that's not entirely true...I remember waking up and wondering where the hell I was a few times as I made my way home! I'm pretty sure, though, that God let me live through that and is making me pay for my stupidity by getting the joy of taking care of my three insane monkeys every day! That's another story for another day, though...

glad you had a night out/in with some friends. everyone needs those as a way of measuring where you're at, how far you've come, and where you want to go.. both as an individual and as a mom.

and honey.. you're just NOW learning the power of the captain? tsk tsk tsk. He was my spring-summertime friend from ages 27-32. (I'd switch to Jack for fall and winter) you should also try using captain in a pina colada instead of white rum. YUM!